A mounting apparatus of this kind has conventionally had a construction in that it comprises: a feed section for feeding a specified type and quantity of electronic components; a board holding section for holding a circuit board, onto which those electronic components are to be mounted, and which is movable longitudinally and laterally; a mounting section for mounting those electronic components onto the circuit board; and a plurality of drive units for driving these individual sections.
That is, it has been a case that components fed from the feed section are mounted on and on appropriately in order.
In this conventional mounting apparatus, when an effective torque of a drive unit has exceeded a specified upper-limit value due to a mounting-apparatus operation mode or load variation, the drive unit would increase in temperature due to heat generation of internal parts, where continuing an operation as it is could result in a failure of the drive unit.
For prevention of this failure, in a case where an effective torque of a drive unit could exceed a specified upper-limit value, it has been practiced to select a large-capacity drive unit in which a safety factor, i.e. degree of margin, of a controllable drive unit capacity is set higher.
This would hitherto cause an excessive capacity selection of the drive unit to be involved in drive unit selection, further leading to an increase in mechanical cost.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a mounting apparatus which is capable of suppressing temperature increases due to heat generation of components inside a drive unit caused by the drive unit's effective torque exceeding a specified upper-limit value, suppressing a safety factor, i.e. degree of margin, for selection of a drive unit to a lower one, and thus preventing failures of the drive unit even if the drive unit is as small in capacity as a minimum requirement, and low in price, and therefore, which makes it possible to perform high-efficiency production without halting the apparatus.